Bloom: Beach House's dreamy midnight escape
Some albums hit like a thunderclap - loud, immediate, impossible to ignore. Others seep in slowly, curling around you like smoke, lingering in your subconscious long after the final note fades. Bloom, Beach House's 2012 dream pop opus, is the latter. It doesn't demand your attention; it seduces it, pulling you into its fog-drenched atmosphere with patience and grace.
When Bloom was released, Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally had already carved out their niche as dream pop's reigning auteurs. Their 2010 album, Teen Dream, had brought them widespread acclaim, with songs that felt as though they were lit from within - warm, hazy, and unmistakably intimate. With Bloom, Beach House didn't reinvent themselves so much as refine their aesthetic to its most intoxicating form.
The architecture of a dream
What makes Bloom so hypnotic? Part of it is in the production. Legrand's vocals are drenched in reverb, her voice floating above a bed of shimmering synths and Scally's signature arpeggiated guitar lines. The drums, often locked into steady, minimal grooves, keep everything anchored just enough to prevent the music from drifting off entirely.
And yet, there's something ghostly about these songs. They exist in that strange, liminal space between nostalgia and longing - between the warmth of a fading memory and the cold realization that you can't quite return to it. Myth, the album's opener, embodies this perfectly. With its cascading synths and Legrand's plaintive refrain ("Help me to name it"), it feels like trying to grasp a dream before it slips away.
Waves that keep crashing
If Teen Dream was an invitation into Beach House's world, Bloom feels like getting lost inside it. Lazuli shimmers with an almost weightless beauty, built around a simple, looping keyboard line that feels like the musical equivalent of watching city lights blur past a car window. The Hours moves with a steady pulse, its chiming guitars and melancholic melody evoking that peculiar ache of remembering something you're not sure even happened.
And then there's Wishes, possibly the album's most devastating moment. It's deceptively upbeat at first, its melody unfolding like a slow-motion sunrise. But there's a sadness woven into it - something about the way Legrand sings "The place I live in / the place I breathe in" suggests that even the most beautiful dreams are fleeting. (If you haven't seen the surreal music video, starring Ray Wise as a suited-up, charismatic MC conducting a bizarre stadium performance, do yourself a favor and watch it.)
The beauty of restraint
One of Beach House's greatest strengths is their refusal to overcomplicate things. They don't need a dozen layers of sound to create something immersive. A simple drum pattern, a few swirling synths, a guitar line spiraling upward like a wisp of smoke - that's all they need to construct an entire emotional landscape.
That said, Bloom does flirt with repetition. If you're not already under its spell, some of the mid-album tracks might feel a little too familiar, as if the band is painting variations of the same picture. But that's also part of the album's charm - it's not meant to be consumed in pieces. It's meant to be experienced as a whole, like an hour-long dream that you're reluctant to wake from.
The legacy of Bloom
More than a decade later, Bloom still holds up. It's one of those records that feels timeless, untouched by trends or shifting musical landscapes. Even as Beach House has continued to evolve, experimenting with more sprawling, ambitious projects (Once Twice Melody, anyone?), there's something about the simplicity and cohesion of Bloom that makes it feel like their definitive statement.
It's an album that rewards patience. If you give it your full attention, it becomes transportive - an escape hatch into another world, where time moves slower and everything is bathed in a soft, golden light.
Not every album needs to shout to be heard. Some just whisper - and somehow, that makes them resonate even deeper.
Final Thoughts:
Bloom isn't about immediate gratification. It's about sinking into a mood, letting the music wash over you, and feeling just a little bit haunted by it afterward. It might not be the most groundbreaking album of its era, but it's one of the most enduring. And sometimes, that's enough.
FINAL SCORE: 8.5/10